This week’s tax change is large and complex. I’m sure attorneys and accountants will be kept employed for years, determining what it means to the rental industry. In my search for answers I found a good article that is worth sharing.

A new exclusion or deduction of 20 percent of ‘qualified business income’ will effectively reduce the tax rate on such income by 20 percent. Thus, qualified income otherwise taxed at the top rate of 37 percent will be taxed at 29.6 percent. Income otherwise taxed at 24 percent, for example, will be taxed at 19.2 percent. Self-employment or net investment income taxes, where applicable, would be in addition to these amounts.

When I was just a wee lad of six or seven I was given a book for Christmas, The Way Things Work.

I do not think any gift had made as much of an impact on my life as this. Learning so many fundamentals of mechanics, physics, electricity, plumbing etc as a grade school kid was a foundation that helped me understand so much of what I needed as a small landlord that initially had to make all my own repairs.

These fundamentals also helped me succeed in my prior career in manufacturing.

How different my life would have been if instead I had gotten the Tonka dump truck I thought I wanted for Christmas.

Today, when deciding what gifts to give my grandchildren, I try to find gifts that may impact their lives as much as this book impacted mine.

In fact writing this post brought back such memories, that I just bought a used copy for myself.

An ordinance was proposed that would impose a requirement that all downtown construction with 20 or more residential units set aside units for affordable housing. 10%, if privately financed, or 20% if government subsidies. If the developer was unwilling to do so, then the city would charge a fee of $125,000 per required affordable unit, PRIOR to issuing the permit.

While providing housing to struggling families is a noble concern, the problem with this type of proposal is it discourages development. When you have the capability to do a $100, $200, $400 million dollar project, there are a lot of communities vying for the influx of development (I’ll assume as I never did anything close to that big)

Years ago I was in Vegas helping my wife do an event there. I was standing in line to buy something and started talking to the guy in front of me. He was a large developer. When he asked where I was from, I said Milwaukee. His response was ‘you do not have a decent skyline and never will as your city is too hard on developers.”

The article has nothing to do with a landlord, and everything to do with with fraudsters using real estate as the vehicle for their criminal activity.

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Yet just like the other non-landlord related articles in the series, the html title tag is “Landlord Games:…” , the caption to the attached video reads “Some Milwaukee landlords game the system, taking advantage of potential renters and home buyers” and the footer:

Read the investigation

To read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Landlord Games investigation, which examines ways landlords game the system and how city officials allow it to happen, go to jsonline.com/landlordgames.

Certainly not a “landlord game.” But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel continually mis-captions anything negative about housing as being “landlord” caused.

Attorney Tristan Pettit, you know, the guy that writes the standard legal forms for Wisconsin Legal Blank, is doing his landlord-tenant Boot Camp again on Saturday, October 7th. There are still a few seats left.

You get a full day of landlord-tenant law training for the price you’ll spend for 30 minutes of attorney time after you make a mistake in this complex area of law,

All the details are at:
http://www.landlordbootcamp2017.com

But the proof of value is I send my staff to Tristan’s Boot Camps. Even though I know the laws, it is of great value to have staff learn what they need to be concerned about in a different setting than the office.

Disclaimer

I am "just a landlord," NOT an attorney or accountant. If you need legal advice, tax advice or have appendicitis, don’t rely on something you read on the internet and do it yourself. Rather, hire a competent professional.